1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the interconnection of various types of digital computer system components. More specifically, the present invention provides a single chip which allows many diverse system components to be efficiently interconnected.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Implementation of efficient and low cost special purpose computer architectures which may be utilized for a variety of applications has long been a goal of designers and inventors. The major difficulty in such implementations is not the provision of processing or memory modules since many such components are commercially available. Instead, the problem relates to the interconnection of many diverse system components.
Many existing interconnection components have been proposed and are available which can solve part of the linking problem stated above. For example, general purpose register file chips, first in first out queue (FIFO) chips and programmable array logic (PAL) chips are presently known. None of these chips, however, have yet managed to combine FIFO, crossbar switching and register features on a single chip and at the same time allow for programmable control.